Q & A
The following is an excerpt from a Q & A I did with an editor at Z after writing Homemade Haunting. Here are some of the common questions I get about the novel:
Z: So no one in your family is demon possessed?
ROB: I thought my sister might have been when I was a teenager, but I later learned that a lot of teenage girls act demon possessed.
Z: Okay, well if this idea didn’t come from personal experience where did it come from?
ROB: Originally this book came from meeting someone who told me all about how he used to be heavily involved in the occult but when he had a family he didn’t want to expose them to any of that. I started writing that story, it was actually called Fallen World, but I ran into a lot of problems with it. So I thought what if I flipped it on its head. What if someone with an established family life tried to bring the occult into his home?
Z: I’d think flipping it around like that would really change the whole story. Not just the plot but what the story was about.
ROB: Absolutely. Originally the character had more innocence because he was trying to get free from something. It was like this guy told me: It’s hard to be a Satanist and a good father. I thought that sounded like a fascinating character. But Charlie was guilty of inviting something into his home for the sake of his own career. So for me this story was personal in that way, not really because he was a writer, but because my biggest fear has always been doing some sort of wrong doing that would affect my wife and my kids. It’s the last thing I’d ever want to do. To me hurting your family in that way is what real life horror is.
Z: Wow. I didn’t expect that answer.
ROB: I don’t think that was the answer I expected to give either. Funny the stuff you come up with when you have questions coming your way.
Z: Well, let’s keep the questions coming and see what else you come up with. This book is funny in moments you wouldn’t necessarily expect comedy. Why do you use humor in story like this?
ROB: I wanted this story to be in a sort of hyper reality. I think most of my stories are like that. Those are the stories I love to read. I love authors like Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain who are really funny in one moment and chilling in the next. I think if I was trying to use a Ouija board to get story ideas it’d be both funny because I wouldn’t know what I was doing and just as scary because I wouldn’t know the consequences of what I was doing.
Z: How much of Rob Stennett is in Charlie Walker?
ROB: Obviously the story comes from me, but my life is not nearly as interesting as Charlie’s. I would never just quit my job, nor would I keep pushing on something when it seemed so wrong. I’m not nearly as judgmental as he is either. But I do think I rationalize things, so when Charlie made the 5 Rules About Ghost Hunting I could see myself doing something like that to ease my guilt.
Z: How about any characters or scenes you wanted to write that didn’t make the cut?
ROB: I had this scene where I wanted Charlie and Rachel to end up at a progressive dinner in a creepy home like the one Charlie is talking about, but it didn’t make sense for the story. I just thought it’d be fun to write.
Z: What’s next for Rob Stennett?
ROB: Right now I’m working on potentially developing one of my books into a feature film. It’s still in the early phases but I’d love to see it happen.
